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Daily industrial news and top headlines for plant and maintenance managers

Cubic Designs (New Berlin, WI) introduces the Cubic Barrier Rail, and industrial safety rail for facilities where a physical barrier is required but cost is a concern. A Barrier Rail can delineate high-traffic areas within a facility and provide personnel with protection around loading docks.

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese President Hu Jintao rebuffed U.S. calls to re-value China's currency, telling President Barack Obama that any tinkering with the yuan will be done by Beijing in accord with domestic interests.
Hu defended China's policy of pegging the yuan to the dollar at a Monday meeting with Obama in Washington and said changes to the exchange rate would not come from U.

DETROIT (AP) — Real-world tests show that General Motors Co.'s rechargeable electric car can travel 40 miles on battery power as promised, company engineers said Monday.
Engineers are testing six Volts that recently were made on a Detroit assembly line, driving them at the company's proving ground and on roads around Detroit.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Economic stress declined in the nation's most troubled areas in February as unemployment stabilized and the pace of foreclosures eased, according to The Associated Press' monthly analysis of conditions in more than 3,100 U.S. counties.
After peaking in January, economic stress dipped in February in half the states and half the 3,141 counties.

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. (AP) — IBM Corp. says it has opened a new $30 million manufacturing facility at its Poughkeepsie, N.Y., site to produce the next generation of mainframes and servers.
The Hudson Valley facility officially opened Tuesday and will produce IBM's next line of System z mainframe computers and high-end Power Systems servers.

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — A multimillion-dollar revenue package that increases taxes on bottled water, soda, candy and mass-produced beer was approved by the Washington state Legislature as lawmakers finished their work to plug a $2.8 billion budget deficit.
Just hours before the Legislature adjourned the special session, the Senate passed, on a 25-21 vote, the measure that makes up about $668 million of Democrats' nearly $800 million revenue package.

BEIJING (AP) — China announced antidumping duties of up to 64.8 percent on U.S. and Russian steel used by the power industry Tuesday amid a series of disputes with the United States and other trading partners.
Investigators also found U.S. producers of flat-rolled electrical steel received subsidies, the Commerce Ministry said.

With more than 500 retail stores in 36 states, Eye Care Centers of America Inc. is the third largest retail optical chain in the U.S. To meet Eye Care Centers’ need for product, parent company HVHC Inc. has to produce huge quantities of eye glasses in an array of configurations.

Belt Technologies (Agawam, MA) now offers a line of stainless steel indexing belts to pair with the high-speed conveyors used to assemble multi-component assemblies. The steel belts resist stretching, provide good repeatability, and allow for the exact positioning of tools and parts.

A line of circular knives and blades, along with hand knives designed for cutting hose and tube materials, are available from Hyde Industrial Blade Solutions (IBS, Southbridge, MA). The blades and knives are engineered to cut the strongest materials, including tough wire-reinforced hydraulic hose.

The Hyster Company (Greenville, NC) has introduced the E30-40HSD2 series of electric stand-up lift trucks. The three-wheeled truck delivers lifting capacities of 3,000 to 4,000 lbs. and anti-fatigue mats that absorb and reduce the transmission of vibration and shock to the operator by 25 percent.

I’m sorry, you’re not green enough.
Just a few years ago, using that type of reasoning for dissolving a business partnership may have been hard to swallow. However, that’s exactly what Nestle did.
The Swiss food company announced that it was dropping an Indonesian palm oil supplier due to the damage that palm oil plantations are causing in Southeast Asia.

MIAMI (AP) — Toyota has routinely engaged in questionable, evasive and deceptive legal tactics when sued, frequently claiming it does not have information it is required to turn over and sometimes even ignoring court orders to produce key documents, an Associated Press investigation shows.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A panel of academics that date the beginnings and ends of recessions isn't ready to declare just yet when this downturn ended.
The National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday that although most barometers show improvements in the economy, it would be "premature" to pinpoint the end of a recession based on economic data seen so far.

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Ford Motor Co. is expected to use a parts plant near Ypsilanti to supply hybrid vehicle battery packs.
A letter dated March 30 and posted on the Web site of United Auto Workers union Local 898, which represents employees at Ford's Rawsonville plant, says the facility has been selected to build the components.

ATHENS, Ala. (AP) — Bill Turner's company manufactures products nobody wants to use, but people are thankful they are available if needed.
If a wreck crushes bones in a motorist's back, Turner's company makes a metal implant doctors can insert in the spine to fuse to the remaining bones.